The government has allowed 22 financial companies, including Amazon Pay (India) and Hero FinCorp, to carry out Aadhaar-based customer authentication.
According to the latest notification from the Ministry of Finance, reporting entities under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) will be able to verify the identity of customers and beneficial ownership details using their Aadhaar numbers.
It includes companies such as Godrej Finance, Amazon Pay (India) Pvt Ltd, Aditya Birla Housing Finance, Tata Motors Finance Solution, IIFL Finance and Mahindra Rural Housing Finance Ltd.
Nangia Andersen LLP partner Sandeep Jhunjhunwala said that while Aadhaar authentication of customers is available as one of the verification modes for banking companies, the PMLA states that Aadhaar authentication can also be adopted by reporting entities other than banking companies, as notified by the central government.
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“Accordingly, the GC has notified a list of 22 financial institutions/brokers, who can use Aadhaar authentication to verify the identity of customers/beneficial owners,” Jhunjhunwala said.
The other modes of verification prescribed under the Money Laundering Act include offline verification under the Aadhaar Act, the use of a passport and any other officially valid document or form of identification that may be notified by the central government, and the client has the voluntary option to opt for the verification mode.
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“In order to safeguard the identity information and authentication records of individuals, the Money Laundering Law prohibits reporting entities from storing Aadhaar number or customer core biometric information, where Aadhaar is used to verify identity. identity,” added Jhunjhunwala.
Aadhaar issuing body UIDAI recently launched a feature where residents can verify their email and mobile number linked to their Aadhaar.